shorter overhangs and lower hood

[Ohio Enthusiast]

Originally Posted by Sasquachulator

He just needs to carefully push the car into a wall from both the front and the back.

Dont worry about the cracking and crunching sounds...those'll buff out hopfully when he's reached the desired overhang. And if the bumper falls apart, just 3d print new ones.

Reminds me of this ad -

[ZDan]

Overhangs are fine wit me. In fact a "proper" FR sports car is generally going to *want* to have longish rear overhang for better front/rear weight distribution.

What I wanna do is section out 10" of the lower part of the car and shove the rear wheels forward 10". Should be easy enough with a Sawzall, no?!

[pope]

Originally Posted by Sasquachulator

He just needs to carefully push the car into a wall from both the front and the back.

Dont worry about the cracking and crunching sounds...those'll buff out hopfully when he's reached the desired overhang. And if the bumper falls apart, just 3d print new ones.

Its so easy, why havent the car designers thought of this???

Funny enough this could work. A friend once "accidentally" jumped his Gen 1 Durango at Silver Lake Sand Dunes and face planted the landing. Somehow the airbags did not detonate, but the entire front end was mildly squashed. Luckily, it hit squarely and the damage was almost symmetric and didn't actually look like damage. The fenders and hood gained a subtle increase in the curves and the bumper was a little more flush. Aside from replacing the condenser and radiator he never had it fixed because he thought the result left it looking more aggressive.

Not saying I'd try this with an 86 twin, but I'd definitely enjoy watching the attempt.

[flyboy2160]

Lololol How do you guys know what engineering and composite fabrication skills I have? Lolololol We’ll take bets when I do this next year!!!

This all depends on the new car having a similar structure to the current one.

My plan is to modify just the plastic bumper covers and the hood. I’ll remove the rear bumper and perhaps replace it.

IF the new car is similar to the old one, there is plenty of room to reduce the overhangs, as shown below.

My plan is to reuse the areas of the parts that include the attach points and fabricate new areas in between using Rutan’s lost foam process. I’ll make oversize globs of expanded foam that are in contact with the saved portions. I’ll trim these to the desired shape, then lay the initial fiberglass plies over the whole deal. After removing the blob, I’ll remove the formed in place foam. There will be more fiberglass and of course, bondo and sanding and bondo and sanding.

[HKz]

we'll revive this thread in a few years

[Dake]

Guys guys. I don't think we're paying enough respect to the anonymous internet poster's skill level.

Seriously though flyboy - I think you will get plenty of recognition if you pull it off. And I have no problem saying I'll follow your build thread. Until then though, it's all just dreamin'.

Do you have any other projects you've done where we could see examples of your handiwork?

[Red-86]

What an odd thing to be concerned about. The overhangs are already quite short, and if you want it to look lower, just lower it on some coilovers. The hood is already pretty low, about as low as you will get on a budget, front-engined sports car with today's safety regulations. Even with a boxer four, they still need to leave a certain amount of space between the top of the engine and the bonnet for pedestrian safety (and cooling etc).

[Red-86]

Originally Posted by ZDan

Overhangs are fine wit me. In fact a "proper" FR sports car is generally going to *want* to have longish rear overhang for better front/rear weight distribution.

What I wanna do is section out 10" of the lower part of the car and shove the rear wheels forward 10". Should be easy enough with a Sawzall, no?!

No like at all. Looks ill proportioned, like a clown shoe. The roof now looks too high for the car since the car's overall length is now too short for that roof height. Nope.

[PulsarBeeerz]

Just get rid of the OEM strut style suspension and you can lower the hood as much as you like.

[NoHaveMSG]

Originally Posted by HKz

we'll revive this thread in a few years

I think we should revive it every few months

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by Red-86

No like at all. Looks ill proportioned, like a clown shoe. The roof now looks too high for the car since the car's overall length is now too short for that roof height. Nope.

Really not getting the "clownshoe" references. I love the Z3 coupe, but my short-wheelbase BRZ surely is more similar in shape to 2-seat FR cars that have a more "normal" fastback/hatchback roofline like:
Z4 coupe, new Supra, Shelby Daytona Coupe, 250 GTO, 240Z, etc. etc.

The one thing that bothers me most about the FT86 is the 2+2 compromise. A *proper* FR 2-seat sports car generally has the rear wheels situated just aft of the driver, and not shoved way aft like a Scion tC. Functionally this puts more weight on the front wheels, hence we have a craptastic 55/45 F/R weight distribution. A short-wheelbase FT86 would be 50/50, would be ~100 lb. lighter-weight, be a bit stiffer torsionally, and would be even more responsive-handling. All wins for me. And I'm also a big fan of the look as well. Doesn't look "taller" to me due to shorter wheelbase, and definitely wouldn't in person.

[Dzmitry]

Originally Posted by ZDan

Really not getting the "clownshoe" references. I love the Z3 coupe, but my short-wheelbase BRZ surely is more similar in shape to 2-seat FR cars that have a more "normal" fastback/hatchback roofline like:
Z4 coupe, new Supra, Shelby Daytona Coupe, 250 GTO, 240Z, etc. etc.

The one thing that bothers me most about the FT86 is the 2+2 compromise. A *proper* FR 2-seat sports car generally has the rear wheels situated just aft of the driver, and not shoved way aft like a Scion tC. Functionally this puts more weight on the front wheels, hence we have a craptastic 55/45 F/R weight distribution. A short-wheelbase FT86 would be 50/50, would be ~100 lb. lighter-weight, be a bit stiffer torsionally, and would be even more responsive-handling. All wins for me. And I'm also a big fan of the look as well. Doesn't look "taller" to me due to shorter wheelbase, and definitely wouldn't in person.

If the rear seats were removed and the rear wheels moved up, would that not make for a higher F than R? Seems to contradict your hopes for 50/50. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by Dzmitry

If the rear seats were removed and the rear wheels moved up, would that not make for a higher F than R? Seems to contradict your hopes for 50/50. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

Indeed you are! Moving rear wheels forward puts them closer to the c.g., loads them up. That's why most dedicated 2-seat FR sports cars have the rears (and fronts) shifted forward relative to the driver vs. other cars. To get static weight on the driven rears. It's also why FF cars have the rear wheels shoved relatively way AFT. To unload them and keep the driven front wheels loaded.

Think if you moved the rears WAY way forward, at some point they'd take 100% of the weight and moving them any further forward the fronts would lift off the ground!

[Dzmitry]

Originally Posted by ZDan

Indeed you are! Moving rear wheels forward puts them closer to the c.g., loads them up. That's why most dedicated 2-seat FR sports cars have the rears (and fronts) shifted forward relative to the driver vs. other cars. To get static weight on the driven rears. It's also why FF cars have the rear wheels shoved relatively way AFT. To unload them and keep the driven front wheels loaded.

Think if you moved the rears WAY way forward, at some point they'd take 100% of the weight and moving them any further forward the fronts would lift off the ground!

I do understand that, I guess I just misinterpreted what you were saying earlier. Because removing the rear seats would lower your R weight and also adjust the CG to be further towards the front. Or maybe I just didn't get enough sleep this morning as the little one decided it was time to be wide awake in the middle of the night.